Pathfinder: Avengers of Westcrown

Section Disclaimer

As a really, really fast summary, I intend for this to do two things. One, it can be sort of an adventure log, though it’s going to be through the eyes of a chaotic evil drow with some actual mental issues going on in comprehending emotions. It’ll be accurate- why would he lie to himself?- but it might be more skewed and biased than the Fox News of Westcrown’s rendition of events. And two, not that it’s a bad thing or a complaint, but I have a slightly more passive personality and have trouble getting words in, so this is going to be kind of a guide to Sakis’ body language and other obvious signs of things that even the casual observer may have noticed. The finer details of this get more detail below.

As an out-of-character note, I just want to say- lore is awesome. Lore is a thing that I easily can get wrapped up in until I’m at annoying fanboy levels of lore. I know the lore of Borderlands, and that can sink in for people who know the game- it doesn’t have a story; no one plays it for the story. And I’m honestly into the lore to where certain plot events actually ruined my day. But… To anyone who’s ever played Mass Effect, do you remember the very first time that you played? How you’re like “alright, humans, space, I got this” and then there’s a Turian and you can barely remember what the race is called or what a Spectre is and suddenly, before you can even fire a gun, you have this whole plot presented to you- and it’s not spoonfed, because Shepard knows this all already. Then you’re thrown out onto some human colony under attack by these things and presented with things (Reapers and shit) that even your character finds mysterious. By the time you’re on the Citadel, you may have gathered enough to cautiously laugh at this Turian calling a Hanar a “big, stupid jellyfish” because it probably isn’t too space racist but you have no idea what is going on there. I’m pretty sure that, near the end, or after completing one playthrough of the first game, I understood the setting, if not the nuances, but it took a long time.

And then, still going with this Mass Effect reference thing, you see me walking around in a full-on “I am Commander Shepard” hoodie and we all joke about Blasto the Hanar Spectre. We now understand the Mass Effect universe. But it took a lot of time. If you didn’t play the game, you probably don’t yet understand the Mass Effect universe, but I’m making this a general statement.

I’m not trying to blow the lore off here by any means, because I know there is a story and I know that everyone’s put effort into somehow changing the universe so that things make sense and all kinds of things. That’s awesome and I’m genuinely looking forward to the day where it starts to click, nuances and all. But I don’t know everything yet, nor does my character, so… Yeah.

I’m actually completely cool with keeping some kind of adventure log, and want to, just because it does fit what Sakis just… does. In my mind, and having a work-in-progress idea of what Sakis was doing before he joined this whole mess (which may or may not get finished and posted here soon), I’ve come to this dilemma where Sakis wouldn’t use a journal. These are sort of his mental notes, arranging words from the thought-cloud-thing in his head, and just kind of generally preparing for meditation daily. As the day goes on, he tries to process bits that have happened and put them into a narrative in advance- I do the same thing in real life, if I know that I’ll have to tell someone else about my day or whatever it is, and Sakis knows that he’ll be telling his buddy the demon lord whenever he spends an hour doing that. So the adventure log thing, Sakis is putting effort into recapping this already, so why not go with it?

So, how would anyone know this in character? Good question! I suppose if my mind gets read or something like that, some of this could be character knowledge to someone, but in general, most people would probably not have access to Sakis’ stream of thoughts. This also isn’t a transcript of me talking to a demon lord; it’s just a collection of thoughts that form periodically as we go on, so if someone had access to my mind, you’d probably be like “hey, we’re both experiencing the present right now, yay!” and it’d be underwhelming and reveal few secrets. That isn’t paranoia, like I feel like a mage-type is ready to dig into my head, but I’m just trying to describe this excessively so that I can avoid the question of how this might physically manifest (because it does not).

I’m including this because I’m not naturally overly charismatic- however, I am actually rather good at the whole bluffing and sitting back kind of thing in real life. So I sit back, and Sakis sits back, and in huge part because I knew that I would be sitting back a lot, and getting into character and all of that, Sakis’ personality was formed. It works out in the end and it’s not a bad thing. I’m chaotic evil and I have plans, and Sakis isn’t even sure of what his end-goal is yet, so I’m going to guard what few things I say (which gives me a future character idea for having Tourette’s syndrome and being CE but that’s not the point), and I do have a high bluff and all of this to the point where I think that I can try to conceal my motives when I want to. But I’m guessing that the occasional bit of body language gets through here and there, especially if something else has my attention and I let my guard down. And other characters might actually really be paying attention to those small things whilst being diplomatic because that’s how that works, and Sakis would actually react properly, so… I’m sort of offering a “hell if I could portray this” bit of character knowledge for anyone who wants to notice things- like, I made some attempt to guard Motýl on day 1, and even though it was sort of obvious, there were little nuances that I added that even the casual observer may have picked up upon, like the “glaring in jealousy” thing. This wasn’t a huge acted event at the table, though. Characters without access to my mind won’t know about any inner turmoil or thoughts or whatever, but you might have enough to gossip or something, whatever adventurers do, because that was an obvious thing to continue the awkward flirting story arc.

I’m just sort of offering the information and you can figure out what, in-game, your respective character would have noticed, if you want to. I’m desperately trying to not be a 2D character, but especially right now in real life, my mind isn’t going to let me gather attention. But there’s a difference between holding your cards close to your chest and not having cards, so this is my current portrayal of depth. I had slight notes going and thoughts here and there as the night progressed so that I could do this and not screw up the storyline- this is really just an accurate recap of the night, but as Sakis. And without that much lore because I’m working on that still.